Let me start by saying I know I said I was going to review this when it was still in the theaters, but I have to say I am very glad that I didn’t. Having read all the books, and I was very concerned about this movie because of this tweet
I knew from that piece of information that we would be starting fresh, that this would be a new story picking up from the end of the last book. I didn’t know however that this would be the horrible journey that it was.
I believe the problem was two fold; first, there is a TON of information and story in the world of The Dark Tower, there is no way you would ever squeeze it into a couple hours. My original hope, honestly, was that I would see a piece of a book or two. Second is that there was an attempt to make this a film that would appeal to people who had not read the Dark Tower books. I think that was the biggest flaw.
The Dark Tower is not the world of Harry Potter. There is not little chunks of story that can appeal to all and make them run off to read the books. People went to see this film to see the ideas in their head from reading this tale for years brought to life. What they got instead was a story missing characters, missing themes, and worst of all, missing the overall real feeling from the books.
I am so happy that I did not see this until the movie was out for home release. I am even happier that I picked it up on a Black Friday sale so I got it for even cheaper than a pay-per-view rental. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have experienced the tale that was there to tell. However, justice was not done. I was missing my ka-tet, I was missing many of my elements, and for a tale that is essentially made up of ten books plus spills into other stories an hour and thirty five minutes is far from telling the tale of the gunslinger.